Explorer

Common tasks pane provides links relevant to current folder. Turn off this feature through 'Tools: Folder Options: Use Windows Classic View'. This can be added as a toolbar icon if required: 'View: Toolbars: Customize'. Tasks view can be toggled to folders view. Task Pane contains a details pane: similar to the properties page. Status bar is off by default.

Toolbars

• Menu
• Standard
• Address
• Links

Use toolbar handles to move the toolbars. To unlock toolbars 'View - Tools: Lock'. F11 to remove the Menu toolbar.

Explorer Bars

• Search - F3
• Favourites: Ctrl+I
• Media
• History: Ctrl+H
• Folders

Drag and Drop: normally windows moves if source and target are on the same drive, copies if the drives are different. Drag and Drop with right-click if not sure

Simple Folder View: if you click a folder name in left pane, right pane changes. If you click the plus sign next to the name in the left pane, right pane remains unchanged. To disable Simple Folder View: 'Tools: Folder Options: View: Advanced'.

Views

• Details: can add a custom list of columns including attributes and properties
• List
• Thumbnails
• Icons
• Film-Strip: (picture folders only; requires show common tasks enabled)
• Grouped

Views can be sorted also. Common dialogue boxes open in list view by default. Cannot make changes to this view permanent. Office application dialogues offer more customisation: because they don't use the common dialogue box. Templates can be added to folders via 'View: Customize this Folder'. Allows you to choose a folder template, add a folder icon, put a picture on the thumbnail for the folder.

Folder Options

• automatically search for network folders and printers
• display file size information in folder tips
• display simple folder view in explorers folder list
• display the contents of system folders: if you click the link in a system folder, it becomes visible thereafter (per user)
• display full path in address and title bar (title bar path is used in toolbar button titles)
• do not cache thumbnails
• display hidden and system files
• display file extensions: to display extensions for particular types use the file types tab
• hide protected OS files (they have hidden and system set)
• launch folder windows in a separate process (memory space)
• manage pairs of web pages and folders
• remember each folders view settings (default: yes)
• restore previous folders at logon (default: no)
• show control panel in my computer
• show encrypted or compressed files in colour: encrypted: green; compressed: blue
• show pop-up descriptions for folders and desktop icons
• use Simple File Sharing

File Types

• change default action
• change application association
• change file type icon
• change if extension should be displayed in explorer
• specify if file type should be opened immediately after downloading
• add commands to shortcut menu

Explorer Command

explorer

• /n opens without a folder bar
• /e with explorer bar
• /root object (can be GUID or path)
• /select subobject

File Rename

File Rename: F2. Select multiple files, press F2, type newname: result: newname, newname(1), newname(2),...Use Ctrl+Z to undo these changes one-by-one. Use file properties to classify files: Indexing service query language can search these properties. Keyboard shortcuts only work for desktop shortcuts. read-only attribute does not prevent you moving, deleting or renaming an object. Folders cannot be set as read-only: setting affects it contents instead.

Compression

• Compression with NTFS compression or Zipped Folders
• NTFS compression achieves modest results
• NTFS de/compression occurs on the fly when you open or save files
• NTFS compressed files remain compressed only on NTFS drives
• NTFS compression incompatible with encryption
• if you move or copy a compressed folder to another NTFS drive it loses it compression
• if you move a file on the same drive to a compressed folder it retains its original state
• if you move a file from a different drive to a compressed folder, it will be compressed
• copy a file to a compressed folder and it will be compressed, irrespective of drive
• (Note: copy inherits, move from another drive similar to a copy and delete)
• zipped folders offers better compression
• zipped folders stay compressed wherever they are moved to
• zipped folders use industry standard compression
• explorer can de/compress zipped folders on the fly but applications cannot: you need to open file in explorer: file opens read-only

Implementing NTFS compression: via 'Properties: General: Advanced: Compress Files to Save Space. Can't compress open files. 'compact.exe' is the command line utility for managing compressed files:

• /c: compress
• /u: uncompress
• /s[:dir]: work on directory and subdirectories
• /a: displays hidden or system files
• /i: ignore errors
• /f: force
• /q: quiet

Implementing Zipped Folders: via Folder, right-click, choose New: Compressed (Zipped) Folder. Don't forget the zip extension! Add files to an existing archive simply by drag and drop, copy or move. To archive existing folder: right-click, choose Send To: Compressed (Zipped) Folder. To password protect an archive, right-click any file in the archive, choose File: Add Password. Affects all files currently in the archive. Will not affect files added afterwards: you'll need to remove password, then re-apply it. Password will stop the file being opened, but will not protect against the zip being opened or files being deleted. Files deleted from zip do not go to the recycle bin. Windows creates temporary folders during extraction process: if windows crashes during this process, the temp files remain without password protection. If you edit a file, and choose Save As.., windows will offer to save to the temp folder. If you do save this folder, windows will not delete this folder because you've changed it. Folder retains hidden attribute. If you do need to save a file from an archive, save it in a different location, then move it back to the archive. To extract a file simply drag it from the archive to a different location. Right-click and drag to remove it from the archive.

Copying files to CD

Copying files to CD: drag files to CD Folder or

• Insert blank CD
• right-click Folder or Files
• choose Send To, CD Drive
• open CD Drive
• click write these files to CD from task pane or 'File: Write these Files to CD'

Metadata cannot be copied to CD. Before burning XP copies files to '%appdata%\microsoft\CD burning'. Then it creates an image file (hidden) in the root of the specified drive called 'CD burning Stash File'. Thus to burn files you need twice the space of the files to burn. CD Folder does not display total size: use CTRL+A and properties instead. Audio CDs written in Red Book format, Data CDs in ISO9660 and Joliet

Recycle Bin

When Bin fills up, XP begins emptying oldest items. Following items do not go to recycle bin

• files from removable drives
• files from Network Drives
• files deleted from compressed (zipped) folders

Use Shift+Del to bypass recycle bin. Windows maintains separate recycle stores for local hard drives, although recycle bin shows all restoreable files together. Default setting: 10% of drive. Deleted folders do not display contents in recycle bin. By default files and folders are restored to their original location, but you can choose 'Edit: Move to Folder' or simply drag and drop to relocate the files elsewhere.

Search Companion

Search Companion: F3 or 'Start: Search'

digital media

• searches media folders first
• does not search hidden objects
• looks for metadata also: e.g. search by author

documents

• searches document folders first
• looks only for files created by registered applications

all files

• search by name includes implicit asterisks before and after
• content search works faster once Indexing Service has created its index

advanced options

• specify file content
• particular folders to search
• specify date range
• specify size parameters
• include system and hidden
• make it case-sensitive
• search a backup tape

Indexing Service

Turned on and off via search companion

Tune performance via ciadv.msc

• speeds up content searches
• built-in query language
• catalogue respects NTFS permissions: results only show files that user has permissions to see
• if catalogue is on a UNC, user will be able to see files for which they have no read permissions: but they will not be able to open them
• catalogues are by default stored in locations accessible to System account only: prevents unauthorised inspection
• never indexes encrypted files
• catalogue created in background, when disks are idle
• requires 15-30% of the space used by indexed files
• only indexes content of HTML, text, Office docs and other docs that have provided a suitable filter
• MMC allows you to try to index files with unknown extensions
• noise words ignored: defined at %systemroot%\system32\noise.xxx
• ignores case: stop search companion from preforming case-sensitive searches
• if catalogue hasn't been built or is being rebuilt, search companion uses ordinary search

Search companion presents these options

• with indexing service: if service not yet running
• without indexing service: if service is running
• both: if you don not have permission to stop/start the service

example queries:

• {phrase} The reign in Spain {/phrase} (words appearing in that order)
• {freetext} The rain in Speign {/freetext} (those words in any order, plus word forms)
• {prop name = DocTitle} equals Language Notes {/prop}
• {prop name = DocTitle} contains Notes {/prop}
• {prop name = Created} >-1d10h {/prop}

Query Language supports BOOLEAN, numeric operators, regular expressions, numeric operators, DOS wildcards. Administer the Indexing Service from 'Manage' or ciadv.msc. By default includes a system and Web catalogue. Processes:

Scanning: occurs first time you start the service, when you add a folder to the catalogue, when an error occurs. Incremental scans occur whenever the service is restarted (e.g. after a reboot) and at least once a day.

Creation of Word Lists: temporary index maintained in memory

Creation of Saved Indexes: compressed temporary disk file

Merging: combining word lists and disk files into a permanent master index

Show Desktop

create the file desktop.scf with the following then drop it where you need it :

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop